The Church of No People

I’ve got something big to share with you today.

As of today, I’ve been blogging for twenty-two months.  Last week, I reached the benchmark of 300 blog posts.  That means you’ve now slurped down 300 doses of my amazing wisdom and impeccable wit, and I’ve read through thousands of your comments.

I always hope that this blog is a meaningful thing to do.  That means writing about meaningful things that I hope will be worth your time.  A couple of months ago, it meant deciding not to put ads on the blog.  It oftentimes means reaching out to some incredible people around the world.

But today, I’m really pumped, because I’m doing something with the blog that’s very meaningful, and I need your help. 

I’m collecting about 800 million glasses of water

…give or take a couple.  I’m not joking.

For the next 30 days, I’ll be a part of a team of 30 bloggers, and we’ll be working to collect that water.  Actually, we’d really rather collect the moolah to dig the wells rather than send the water by UPS.  Seems more efficient that way.

We’re teaming up with Charity: Water, and our goal is provide clean water for six communities in the Central African Republic. 

How big is this need? 

One in eight people on the planet don’t have clean water to drink.  That’s several hundred million people.  It’s the last valuable commodity in many places on earth.  Women and children in pre-industrial cultures typically walk five or more miles to collect a bucket of water out of a dirty river, risking rape and violence along the way.  Or, they may line up for eight hours for a turn at a well.  Meanwhile, I used more water today to wash the grime off myself than these people have in a week. 

You already know that I have a heart for the people of Africa, so I’m really glad to be a part of this.  Charity Water is a great organization.  You won’t find many charities that use 100% of donations for the projects they are working on, but Charity Water covers all their overhead with private sponsors.  That’s awesome.

I don’t know about you, but I love water

I’m really excited to be partnering with 29 other bloggers.  Over the next 30 days, you’ll see the new banners I’ve put on the site, plus I’ll include a banner on every blog post for those of you who are visiting via a blog reader.  Every banner links to our campaign’s site where you can see the other bloggers and track our progress.  I won’t be harping on your every day about this, but I’ll probably give short updates once a week besides my regular updates, of course.

$1 = a year of H2O

Our goal is $30,000 in 30 days.  But just to be safe, let’s get it done in less than 30 days.  Let’s get it done today!  I know I have some amazingly kind, gracious and generous readers who can make a big impact on this goal.  Every buck you pitch in provides water for a person for a year.  Wow.

Tell your friends

Whether you can give or not, you can help these people.  It’s pretty likely that not all of your friends read this blog.  So please spread the word with your blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.

Please don’t make promise something silly like shaving my head or kissing a pig or hugging Fred Phelps if we make our goal.  Let’s just make it happen.  Don’t take one more drink of coffee, wash your hands, water your flowers, or take a shower before you help someone else do the same.  Click the banner below to check out the other bloggers, see videos, and make a contribution.  Oh, and if you chip in a few bucks, or link to me on you blog, Twitter or Facebook, be sure to leave a comment here, so we can get that whole peer pressure thing going!  (And so I can thank you.)

Life is full of first days.

Today is my first day at my new teaching job.  I’m pretty pumped about it, and I’m remembering what it was like for me as a kid to go through all those first days of school.  I can remember a lot of them.  It was always a mix of nervousness and excitement and dread and school lunch.  Getting new school supplies was always fun.  There was always one kid who was so excited to get new glue, he’d be snacking on it before lunchtime.

Since today I’m experiencing another first day, it got me thinking about all the other first days I’ve had in my life.

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Wait, is that a mosque-”raising,” or “razing?”

Since it’s been several days since that whole business with the proposed mosque at Ground Zero hit, the Christian blogosphere has lit up with all kinds of opinoins.  As usual, I’ve waited a few days to think about the situation before I spoke up. 

As with most controversies, I have my gut instincts about it.  But the realities are much more complicated than we’d like them to be.  People are fired up and ready to come to fisticuffs over this thing.

Here’s what I’ve come up with in favor of and against the so called “Islamic Center.”

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What happened to Christian art?

They just don’t make Christian art like they used to, do they?  These days, Christian art is far more often silly, childish, or offensive than amazing.  That kind of saddens me.  Maybe not as many people are interested in depicting religious subjects.  Then again, maybe the Pope’s just not paying top dollar for Christian art like in the past.

Either way, our choices are fairly limited when it comes to modern Christian art, much like Christian music or Christian movies.  I’m not saying it’s all bad.  There’s plenty of talent out there.  I’ve looked for it and found it.  But if you don’t want a Thomas Kincaid painting, you may not know many other Christian artists working today.  Our choices are just few and far between.

Yet, every once in a while, a ray of hope glimmers for Christian art.

These images are a couple of years old, but they are fantastic.  The artists at The Glue Society created four images from the Bible as they may have appeared if Google Earth had captured them.  If you haven’t seen them, you need to check these out.  And they probably weren’t even created by Christians!

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Ah, the beginning of a new school year.

It’s always a momentous occasion.  But the most momentous school year of all is that first one away from home, the freshman year of college.  I remember when my parents drove away, and it dawned on me I wasn’t at church camp, and I wouldn’t be going home in a week.  There are tons of challenges in moving away from home for the first time.  One of the biggest tasks is outfitting a dorm room with everything a student needs to live in the comfort of a small cinderblock room with community showers.  Chances are your first home away from home won’t look like the Olsen twins’ penthouse or for that matter, any TV dorm room, so you’ll have to pick and choose what you bring to school.

Now that I have a home and I’m married, it amazes me that just a few short years ago, all my worldly possessions fit in the back of a small pick up truck.  However, of all the items I could’ve packed for college, there were eight absolutely necessary ingredients for dorm or apartment living.

Of course, videogames and iPods are obvious essentials, but there may be a lot of items that are missed on that last trip to Wal-Mart before classes start.  Today, I’m helping out our new college students with this handy dandy list of eight essential products for life after living with your parents.

Eight Totally Necessary Items for College Living

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Last Friday, I threw in my two cents on a little ongoing debate about female pastors.  You can read it here if you missed it.  While I didn’t comment on whether women should be pastors, I commented on three reasons maybe women shouldn’t be pastors.

We got a lot of great comments.  But I wonder if some of you were holding back.  The comments seemed to be decidedly one sided, saying that women should be pastors.  This is despite the fact that the two biggest denominations in America (Catholics and Southern Baptists) do not allow women to be pastors.

Yes, very few, if any people were willing to go out on that limb and say, “Yeah, there’s something about being a pastor that men are just better suited for,” or even, “I’d just rather listen to a man’s smooth baritone voice rather than a woman’s smooth baritone voice.”

Maybe I have very progressive readers.  But maybe we just don’t like talking about gender roles any more.  That, of course, is why I’m here.  I think we’ve totally messed up the discussion about gender roles.  We oftentimes can’t talk honestly about it.  Here’s why I think that is.

Three Reasons We Can’t Talk About Gender Roles

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